


Tea and Sympathy

by CoffeeMinx



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Angst and Humor, Desmond Swears A Lot, F/M, Fallout Kink Meme, Hurt/Comfort, Prompt Fic, References to Canon, Rough Angry Foreplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-19 00:08:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1448065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeMinx/pseuds/CoffeeMinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic was inspired long ago by this prompt on the Fallout Kinkmeme:</p><p>  <i>The whole "cutting your head open and seeing freaky hallucinations" - ordeal didn't go as smoothly as in canon but actually left more than one scar therefore causing the LW to feel quite strange and unlike herself. However she still has enough sense to comprehend what has been done and so stumbles back to the Mansion. What are her symptoms are up to the author. Will she be an anxious mess? Has she suddenly developed strange urges that she just can't resist? Is her mood drastically changing all the time? </i></p><p>  <i>And more importantly: what is Desmond's reaction?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea and Sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> _Scene: The Female Lone Wanderer, Marian, has returned to Calvert Mansion, having survived the Tribal initiation ritual, with the news that she has obtained the key to Tribal leader Jackson's secret sacred praying grounds._
> 
>  
> 
> _British ghoul Desmond Lockheart scolds her for coming to inform him of her progress instead of going to the grounds directly._

Marian's mouth dropped open, just a little, in response to his bitter comments.

"You're catching flies now?" He sneered. "Get going."

"Y'know, a thank you might be nice. As in, Thank you for sacrificing your brain to protect my petty little life."

Desmond gave a dismissive grunt. "Hardly."

"Hardly?! Haven't you noticed?! My hair is gone! Look at the size of this scar!"

"You ignorant fuck, I meant my life is hardly petty. The game I'm playing is fucking beyond your minuscule comprehension."

"Yeah, beyond my comprehension now that PART OF MY BRAIN IS GONE."

"Quit whining, princess."

"But it's my brain! It's all I have. I'm not pretty. I'm not an especially talented shot. But I can think on my feet and talk convincingly to people. It's how I stay alive."

"And as I still can't get you to shut the fuck up, let's assume you're fine."

She made a frustrated noise and clenched her fists. "Think if it had been your brain…."

"It wouldn't've been. I'm clever enough to send disposable minions like you."

She rolled her eyes, then rolled off the couch they were sitting on and lay in a heap upon the tattered persian rug.

Geri padded over to her and lay down at her side. She turned and buried her face in Geri's fur. 

"What the fuck do you think you're doing down there?" Desmond growled.

"I dunno," she moaned. "I want to cry. But I'm too angry. I have all this emotion and I want to just… release it and I can't."

"Feeling sorry for yourself won't get us anywhere. Get off the fucking floor and go interrogate Jackson."

Her voice was muffled by Geri's fur, but he still managed to understand the string of curses she flung at him. Unoriginal, but good, earthy invective nevertheless.

"Get the hell up."

"No. I quit. You're not nice."

"You'd quit because I'm not nice? Are you fucking insane?"

She looked up at him. "Possibly. PART OF MY BRAIN IS GONE."

He sneered at her again. "Such a fucking princess."

Her head dropped down, face buried in Geri's side. She made a series of snorting sounds and it took him a moment to realize she was laughing. Brilliant. Fucking female had gone hysterical.

There was nothing else for it. He stood, strode to the kitchen and put the kettle on. 

Shaking his head, he retrieved his battered box of PG tips from the top shelf of the farthest cupboard. Squandering one of his precious pyramid bags on a useless… Well, she had handled herself well enough in defending his mansion against those mud-loving Tribals. So not entirely useless, then. 

Still, breaking open his cache of irreplaceable tea… If he didn't know better he'd accuse himself of getting soft. This was just to get the damn bitch back in working order, though. Nothing more.

Marian sighed into the fur of warm, patient Geri. "You understand, don't ya, girl," she muttered.

She felt so…violated. Who had had their hands inside her skull? And where could she find them and kill them? The urge to mutilate the person who'd mutilated her was so strong it was unsettling. 

What if she wasn't herself anymore? Maybe she didn't see colors the same way. Maybe her favorite food had changed. Maybe she was now a merciless psycho-killer.

No, that was unlikely. She was still willing to help Mr. Lockheart when she should be giving him a pummeling. If only he'd show her a little kindness…. If only someone would show her a little kindness. 

Her only "friend" was Moira Brown, and she had the distinct feeling that crazy woman was trying to kill her.

Footsteps warned her of Mr. Lockheart's return. She didn't bother to look up. He wouldn't kill her. He needed her to do all his work.

"I made you a goddamn cup of tea." 

Now that was worth a look. She raised her eyes to see him scowling down at her, a mug with steam rising from its contents in one hand.

He continued, his voice gravelly and resentful as always, "Back home they said you could fix everything with a cuppa. Fucking idiots."

She sat up and took the mug. "Thank you. Maybe I'll revise your nice rating."

"Just drink your fucking tea."

She sipped the hot, sweet, milky liquid. Considering the brahmin-less surroundings, everything in this mug was hard to obtain. This drink was a precious gift, a gift that would definitely revise his niceness quotient upward--and he knew it. 

She took another sip. "You're a manipulative bastard."

He chuckled. "You're smarter than you fucking look, kid."

"Yeah, even with--"

"Part of your goddamn brain gone," he finished for her. "You're a repetitive fuck." 

They sat in silence while she drank with one hand and petted the dog with her other. Geri periodically looked up to see if any more interesting food was on offer and, seeing none, eventually dozed off. 

Freki padded over to join her. They looked angelic curled up together. They also looked like they had the right idea.

"If I could just get some sleep. Maybe I'll feel more myself in the morning."

"Maybe you'll never wake the fuck up."

"My god but you're evil." Her heart pounded as an empty terror hollowed her insides. With some amateur butcher playing in her brains, it was entirely likely some blood vessel or other wasn't tied off properly. She could die in her sleep. Project Purity would never be finished. She'd be a disappointment to everyone, to the Brotherhood of Steel, to her father….

"Hell, calm down, kid. I'm fucking with you." He shook his head. "Blind panic isn't a good look for you."

She took several deep breaths, trying to get her heart-rate back down. "Is it for anyone?"

"Be fucking brilliant on Professor Calvert." He grinned, a dangerous slash of yellowed teeth.

"Your private war has lasted how many decades? I think it can stand one more night." She gave the dogs a last few pets, finished her tea, and stood. "I'll return the mug to the kitchen, then you can show me where to sleep."

"I'd say the floor here, but a useless bitch like you isn't fucking worthy of sleeping with my pups."

"Okay. Correction. I'll throw this mug at your head, then I'll find the cleanest bed in the house."

"That's your best threat?"

"At this distance, I can't miss."

Suddenly Mr. Lockheart was standing in front of her. No, more like towering over her. He'd moved with the speed of a striking snake. She hadn't expected…he was entirely too close.

"What about at this fucking distance, princess?"

She stood frozen, the mug forgotten. She'd never been this near a ghoul - no, anyone - before. Breathing each other's air. If she inhaled deeply enough her breasts might touch his chest. 

Her brain wasn't giving her any sharp quips. Nothing. Either it'd been scrambled worse than she feared or…. 

Okay, she liked this man. She wouldn't be helping him otherwise. Would've just rescued him and moved on. This wasn't her battle. 

Just liked him. She couldn't have a crush on him. He hated her anyway.

She watched his gaze roam her face, to rest on her mouth. Catching a glimpse of his tongue as he wet his lips, she wondered if it was as rough as his skin looked. And if all his skin looked like that.

He smirked and suddenly she feared she might have said that aloud. She could feel her face growing hot.

"You've got a kink for ghouls, kid?" 

She closed her eyes, hiding from the familiar sneer in his voice. "Look, I'm already helping you. You don't need to…humiliate me."

Coarse skin - his fingertip? - traced her jawline. "You're not my type, but be a good pup and maybe ol' Desmond'll give you a treat."

"Condescending bastard," she muttered through gritted teeth.

"Damn straight. You know the difference between a rock-hard bastard like me and a soft little vault girl like you?" 

"Several hundred years and a decent set of manners, I should think."

She heard him laugh. It sounded like honest amusement. This was possibly the first time he wasn't laughing at her expense. 

The touch upon her jaw moved to rub back and forth across her parted lips, the pressure gradually growing harder until the scrape burned against her chapped skin. She wasn't sure if he meant to hurt her, but she needed to break this rhythm just the same. So she sucked his abrasive finger - no, thumb - into her mouth.

His grunt of surprise was inordinately gratifying. For once she had outmaneuvered him.

"Don't play with fire, kid. Men with power fucking take what they want." He jerked his thumb from her mouth and her eyes snapped open. "I could bend you over my desk and there'd be fuck all you could do about it. Frightened yet?"

She wasn't frightened. More like…excited? There had to be some wires crossed in her head. 

He was looking at her expectantly and she realized he awaited her answer. A memory popped to the front of her mind. 

"'Kamala's mouth is beautiful and red, but just try to kiss it against Kamala's will, and you will not obtain a single drop of sweetness from that which knows how to give so many sweet things'."

He raised a dark eyebrow. "Siddhartha? You're quoting fucking Siddhartha at me?"

"Why are you so surprised? I lived in a Vault, not a cave. We had books."

Staring right back into his eyes, refusing to blink until he did, she noticed how pale blue his irises were. Not bleached by the milky overlay that accompanied ghoulification, but a natural light blue that, with his black hair, would have given him a striking (not to say handsome) appearance before the radiation ate his skin. 

She wondered what he would have been like before the war. If centuries of obsession over winning an unwinnable game, because the world they fought for was in ashes, had done this to his personality or if he had always been this way.

Suddenly he shoved her, forcing her to stagger backwards a few steps in order to stay upright. "Naive cunt. It's lucky for you you're not wanted."

He strode across the room to his desk and started riffling through the papers on top of it. She followed, fists clenched. 

"Y'know, I was taught to be respectful of my elders, but hitting you is heading for number one on my to-do list with frightening speed."

"Can't fucking handle the rejection, kid?" He didn't look up, but she could hear the mockery in his tone.

"Nothing of the sort." She crossed her arms over her chest, like that might keep her pounding heart inside where it belonged. "It's your loss."

"Like hell. You're the greenest virgin I've ever fucking met."

"No I'm not."

"Don't contradict me, brat. You bloody well are."

"And how would you know?"

He turned and leered at her. "Awkward purity? Smell it a mile away."

"You don't have a nose."

"It's a fucking figure of speech."

"I could still have skills."

"What?"

"Mad virgin sex skills. I could have them."

He laughed. No, it was a more disparaging noise, and it made her wince. "Fucking tea fixes more than I reckoned."

Eyes fleeing his, she tried to focus on the papers on his desk and not the warm blush creeping up her cheeks. "So what are these? Is this something I should know?"

As she reached for one of the yellowed pages, he grasped her arm and spun her to face him instead. She was trapped between his body and the edge of the desk, an edge that bit into the backs of her thighs as she tried to lean away from him.

"My papers are fucking none of your goddamn business," he growled, pressing forward. She tried to lean further away and almost toppled over. Bracing her hands behind her on the desktop, she managed to remain somewhat upright but there was no retreat left. 

Her personal space had been entirely invaded. His tie dangled in her face. She had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. And something was definitely…oh god…something was definitely prodding at her belly.

"With whom do you fucking think you're dealing, princess?"

Hoping she could manage a brazen tone--or at least not stutter too badly, she shifted her hip against his groin. "A 'rock-hard bastard,' it seems. I thought I wasn't your type."

An emotion, too fleeting to be identified, flickered in his eyes at the contact. Was it possible for him to be as surprised by his body's reaction as she was? 

Pushing up from the desk, she grabbed his shoulder with one hand to steady herself while her other hand sought the front of his trousers. 

Jackpot. Impressed, not to say somewhat terrified, and trying not to betray either emotion, she caressed him.

"Slut." He spit he word out with venom, but did not move away. 

She was about to issue a correction - virgin - when inspiration sparked across her wounded brain: maybe sometimes he wielded his insults not as a sword but as a shield. So she simply answered, "Takes one to know one," and continued to stroke him through the well-worn fabric of his ancient suit. 

His breath came faster, warm huffs that she could feel across her bare scalp. "If you're this full of fucking beans you can get the hell out and fucking talk to Jackson."

She waited until she caught his hips moving ever so slightly, matching her rhythm, pressing himself into her hand, before replying, "Only if you ask nicely." 

"What?" His mustache prickled as it brushed the skin of her ear.

"I'm only interrogating Jackson if you ask me to nicely. Saying 'go fucking do it' won't work. Try 'pretty please' instead."

He pulled back a bit to glare down at her. "Fucking ignorant cunt…little bloody better than a goddamn tribal…fucking…fuck…fuck…." 

Fire snapped in his gaze, but she was thinking this time it wasn't hatred. There was a determined cast to his countenance now, and he no longer attempted to hide the way his hips thrust along to the rhythm she set.

She grinned up at him, heart pounding with imminent victory and heat flooding her veins. "Say it."

Before she knew what was happening, he had her turned about and facing the desktop. Imprisoning her wrists in one hand, he slammed her down with his other hand in the center of her back. Somehow she'd gone from being in control to being bent over his desk and at his mercy. 

Then he was lying on top of her, breathing heavily, his chest pressed to her back, his weight pinning her against the unyielding wood so that she fought to breathe. "Pretty fucking please," he snarled in her ear.

Lack of breath didn't stop her from smiling. "I win."


End file.
